Common Questions....
How do I put my homepages up on Cyber Access?
After developing your web pages you will need to transfer them to your
account at Cyber Access. To do this you need to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol).
Step #1) Instruct your FTP program to connect to ftp.cybercom.net, after putting in your username
and password you will be placed inside your file space at Cyber Access.
Step #2) Use the make directory menu option to create a directory called public_html. Your web
pages need to be placed inside a special directory on our server. This directory is called the
public_html directory.
Step #3) Transfer all your pages and graphics into the public_html directory that you just created.
Be sure that you use binary format when transfering the files. If using a Macintosh be sure to transfer
the files as "raw data" and not Mac binary. Be sure that your main homepage (the first page) is called
index.html
Step #4) After your pages are in place your should be able to access them at the URL
http://www.cybercom.net/~username/
More detailed instructions are also available for Windows and
Macintosh.
Will I get charged if a lot of people look at my page?
Cyber Access allows you 100Mb of transfers per
day free of charge, approximately three gigabytes
of transfers per month.
If you exceed the 100MB/day limit more than two times
in a month you will be charged an additional $39.95 per month.
How do I write a web page?Writing a web page involves learning HTML or (Hyper Text Markup Language). By placing
a set of markups into straight text you can make the text look any way you want. For example, placing
the <B> markup around text you make it appear bold.
<B>This text will be really bold</B>And this is what you get:
This text will be really bold
There are other markups for inserting pictures and creating links. Cyber Access can not write your page
for you but would be happy to offer any assistance needed. Here is a list of good HTML tutorials to get
you started
Does it matter what I name my files? All web files need to be named in accordance with certain conventions. All html
files need to have a ".htm" or ".html" extension on them. The only notable exception is your main page
which MUST have a ".html" extension on it in order to be recognized.
All images need to be in either "gif" or "jpg" format in order to show up on your pages.
You should also note that your pages will be stored on a UNIX system which is CASE SENSITIVE.
some Windows based FTP programs automatically convert files to all capitals when you transfer
them. Meaning your links and images wont work if your referencing them with lowercase letters. We
suggest you keep everything as lowercase letters - as is the general rule on all UNIX systems.
How do I advertise my web pages? First you should register your page with the big search/database services. This
includes:
Plus check out this list of cool places
to advertise your page. Another good way to advertise your page is on Newsgroups - especially if your
page is topic specific. There are Newsgroups for every imaginable topic. Be sure to first check if the
newsgroup allows you to advertise yourself it in this way.
But before you advertise at all be sure your page is interesting and changes occansionally. This is the
best way to keep people coming back again and again and to gain popularity.
What if 20MB isn't enough space? All business and personal accounts are alloted 20MB of WWW space. This is actually
a lot of web space (enough to hold 5 copies of the entire Cyber Access web site). If you include sound
or movie clips on your pages you may start to fill this space up. Check on the size of your files before
uploading them to the server to make sure you stay within your quota. Cyber Access sells of additional
web space in 20MB blocks for $19.95 apiece. We don't have an inforced quota system - so if you accidently
go over the 20MB limit you wont get charged an additional $19.95
What is a "domain name" how do I register and use one? An Internet domain is a personal identifier. Most companies have their own
Internet Domain (Cyber Access's is cybercom.net).
Prices: Cyber Access charges $14.95 to register and maintain your domain name with the
InterNIC. The InterNIC stores the official database of Internet Domains. InterNIC will charge you
$50.00 per year for your domain, with a two year minimum ($100.00 up front).
Registration: To register a domain, fill out the online domain name
registration form, or call Cyber Access support at 617.876.5660.
".com" domains take about 1 week to register and setup, while all other domains take from 1-4 weeks.
Once your domain has been setup you will be able to access your web pages at: http://www.yourdomain.com. You will
also be able to receive mail at your domain. This allows you to set up different mail areas for "sales",
"support", "info" or anything else.
Mail may be sent to any address followed by @yourdomain.com, and will be
forwarded to your normal mailbox.
How do I add a counter to my web pages? Adding a counter is a simple matter of adding one line of code to you HTML document.
STEP #1) To start off add a simple counter to you page by adding the
following line of code:
<img src="http://www.cybercom.net/cgi-bin/Count2.cgi?ft=0|frgb=0;0;0|tr=0|
trgb=0;0;0|wxh=15;20|md=6|dd=B|st=0|sh=1|df=XXXXXX.dat">
STEP #2) Remove the line break that I added above. There must be no spaces
or linebreaks in the code past the "?".
STEP #3) You MUST replace XXXXXX.dat with another filename. I would suggest
something that will be unique to your page.
STEP #4) After successfully implementing this counter try changing some
of the switches in the above code. The switches allow you to control
many aspects of your counters appearance. A guide to what each
switch element does follows.
Resetting you counter is a simple matter of changing the name of the data
file. If your data file was named super.dat, change the counter code to read
super2.dat
ft=9
frgb=69;139;50
frgb defines the color of the frame. Here 69 is the red
component, 139 is the green component and 50 is the blue
component of the color. The valid range of each component
is >=0 and <= 255. The components must be separated by ;
character. Note even if you define ft=0, these components
must be present, just use 0;0;0 in that case.
tr=0
tr defines if you want transparency in the counter image.
here tr=0, that is I do not want transparent image. If you
want transparent image, define tr=1. Note that Coun.cgi,
does not care if your digits are transparent GIFs or not.
You must tell explicitly which color you want to make
transparent.
trgb=0;0;0
if tr=1, then black color of the image will get transparent.
Here 0;0;0 are the red, green and blue component of the color
you want to make transparent.
wxh=15;20
wxh string defines the width and height of an individual
digit image. Each digits must have the same width and
height. If you like to use digits not supplied with my
distribution, find out the width and height of the digits
and specify them here.
md=6
md defines the maximum number of digits to display. It can be
>= 5 and <= 10. If your counter number is less than md, the
left digits will be padded with zeros. Here md=6 means, display
the counter with maximum 6 digits. f you do not want
to left pad with zeros, use pad=0 instead of md=6.
Note you can either use md=some_number of pad=0, in this
field, you can not use both. If you use pad=0, then
the digits will be displayed exactly without padding.
dd=A
dd means digit directory. A indicates, it will use LED digits
located at the directory A. Try using styles A-D until you
find one you like. Other styles will be appearing soon.
st=5
st means start, that is start the counter with this value.
sh=1
sh mean show. If sh=0, then no digit images will be displayed,
however a transparent 1x1 transparent GIF image will be
returned, which will give the illusion of nothing being
displayed.
df=your_data_file.dat
contains the counter number.
Ho do I add imagemaps to my web pages? There are two components to an imagemap. The picture is the first component - it may
be either a "gif" or a "jpg" as with all web page graphics. The second component is the map file. The
map file contains the definitions of the clickable regions in your picture.
STEP #1) First create a ".map" file using an imagemap editor or just write the
file by hand using the NCSA guidlines. A guide to creating imagemaps
by hand can be found on the NCSA
imagemap tutorial page
Step #2) Transfer the image and the ".map" file into your Cyber Access
public_html directory.
Step #3) Put the following lines of code into your document where you want the
imagemap to be:
<a href="http://www.cybercom.net/cgi-bin/imagemap/~username/mapfile">
<img src="your_image" ISMAP></a>
Be sure to replace "username","mapfile", and "your_image" with the appropriate file names. If you have
any other questions just mail
You may also wish to add the following line
In the example above the three input lines are hidden, you could make these standard input lines so that
the person filling out the form could specify a subject, or a destination, etc.. etc.. Make sure that the
recipient and return address fields are filled out properly or else the form will not work. If you
need further assistance mail support@cybercom.net or call 617-876.5660
Be sure to replace 'username' with your actual username. Also be sure the path listed after username correctly points to
the form.txt file. The form.txt file tells cgiemail how to format the mail (see below)
If you use this hidden field the url that you specify will appear once the form is sent. Be sure that the url is
absolute, relative url's will not work properly. If this input is not used the sender will automatically see a
copy of the message they're sending.
If the user tries and sumbit the form with out filling this out a warning message will be generated.
Formatting the form.txt file
STEP #1) The first three fields of form.txt are your header fields. These are mandatory and must have valid values.
STEP #2) A BLANK LINE FOLLOWING the header fields is mandatory.
STEP #3)The rest of the form.txt file can be formatted as you wish. What I do is copy the form into another file -
form.txt and strip away the html leaving my form fields. Put brackets around the field names as illustrated. You can
add any text you desire in and around the field names.
Tel: [Telephone]
Type of Business: [Type of Business]
Request: [Send]
If these Instructions are not clear you can go to the official documentation -
here
Web page password protection operates on whole UNIX subdirectories, not on individual files, so the first
step is to make a subdirectory inside public_html to hold your protected files (unless you want to protect
all your Web documents, in which case you can perform the steps below directly in your public_html
directory).
First, change directory to your public_html directory. Then create a subdirectory for your protected files
(you can skip this step if you want to protect all your files):
Now it's time to create your password file. This file is completely unrelated to the UNIX password file--you
are free to make up whatever usernames and passwords you want in your Web password file. Type these
commands:
You could also set up an anonymous FTP area on the Cyber Access FTP. By doing this people will be able
to get these files by conventional FTP and not just over the web. In order to set up an anonymous FTP
area you have to mail support@cybercom.net or call 617-876.5660.
Writing CGI's: In order to write your own CGI scripts you need to know a programming
language - usually Perl or C++. You also have to know how the server deals with different types of web
pages. Here are some good starting points for Beginning CGI programming:
http://www.yourdomain.com/access_stats/
©1995 Cyber Access Internet Communications
How do I send forms from my web pages? First you need to write the form that you wish to use. Here are a couple good tutorials
on writing forms.Processing Forms Using 'Mailto'
First you need to tell the server what to do with the form. You have to change the form initiation line to
tell the server to mail the form contents to someone. Change the form header line to look like this:
-------------------------------------
You also have to tell the server who you want to mail the form to - and what the subject of your
message is. Add the following three lines to your html code just below the form initiation line.
Processing Forms Using 'cgiemail'
First you need to tell the server what to do with the form. You have to change the form initiation line to
tell the web server to process the form using 'cgiemail'. You then have to tell it where the output format
file (form.txt) is located. The form initiation line should be formatted like this.
--------------------------------------
You also have the option of including the following line:
You may make any input field in your form mandatory by changing the 'name' segment of the input field. Place a
'required-' before the name of any field that must be filled out. So in the following example the 'from' field is
mandatory:
From: "[First Name] [Last Name]" <[required-from]>
To: "Your Name"
So for the above header'First Name', 'Last Name', and 'required-from' are the exact names of some input fields
used in your form.
For Example:
Title: [Title]
Street: [Address]
City: [Addr 2]
FAX: [FAX]
Remarks: [Remarks]
How do I password protect my web pages? Password protecting your web pages involves writing a miniature server configuration
file that will only be used for your files. It is advisable that you have at least a decent understanding
of UNIX commands before attempting to do this. You can protect some or all of your Web
documents with passwords, so that anyone attempting to view them must enter a username and password first.
(The name "protected" is just used as an example--you can use whatever name you want for the directory.)
Now use your favorite text editor to create a file called ".htaccess". Put the following
lines into it:
Be sure to replace the word "yourname" in the AuthUserFile line with your Cyber Access username.
You will be asked (twice) for a password for the user "somebody". Type a password, and then make the
password file world-readable by typing:
Your directory is now protected. Any files you put into it will be accessible only to users who identify
themselves as "somebody", and who enter the correct password. You can add more users to your password file at
any time, like this:
To delete a user from your password file, use a text editor to edit the password file, and delete the
line that begins with the user's name.
How do I create a public FTP area? There are two ways to FTP files out of Cyber Access. If you place the files in your
public_html directory and reference it as a file IE:
People will be able to download it directly from your webpage.
What are CGI scripts? CGI (Common Gateway Interface) Scripts are small programs that are run from your
webpage that allow you to extend what can be done over the web. For example whenever you submit a form
you're running a CGI, or if you've ever seen inline animations on people pages - those
are CGI's as well. Cyber Access has publically availabe CGI's for counting page
hits, running imagemaps, and interpreting forms.
How do I run my own CGI scripts Users are only allowed to run their own CGI
scripts if they subscribe to our Virtual Domain Service.
Cyber Access does not allow users to run CGI's from their home directories. Open
access CGI directories reveal numerous security loopholes if used in the wrong way. Because of this, if
you want to run your own CGI's, you have to mail the cgi or its location to
webmaster@cybercom.net for approval first. After we have
looked over your program (typically within 1 day) we will place it in the general access cgi bin
directory. Sorry for the inconvience this may cause you.
How do I know who is looking at my web pages? This service is only available with our
Virtual Domain package.
Cyber Access automatically logs all incoming web traffic to your site. Each morning a program
runs which analyzes this traffic. These stats are availble at:
Phone: 617.876.5660 Fax: 617.497.1582
Hits since 1/14/96